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WHAT IS MAN?

1 CORINTHIANS ii. 7.

"A man is the image and glory of God."

WHAT, every man? The savage, the cannibal, the wild man of the woods? In Christian countries, is the drunkard, the profane person, the unclean, "the image and glory of God?" What doth the Apostle mean? Perhaps he refers to what man was once, when God created him; or to what he ought to become, through Christ, the great and glorious Redeemer; rather than to what he is actually? Doubtless he doth: but this consideration should have the effect of quickening our desires; of encouraging our hopes; of reproving our sins and follies, and of urging us to use, with all faithful diligence, those means which God hath provided for our salvation.

Look abroad over the face of the earth. Behold the varied landscape. Pay especial attention to every

man !

moving creature that hath life. Who or what, amid this vast assemblage, strikes you most? Not the mountains; not the trees; not the temples and buildings; not huge creatures nor creatures minute, either on land or sea-but man-thy brother man-thyself, This is the masterpiece of Creation; here we have "the image and glory of God." O my brethren, surely we have much to be thankful for, that the great God hath moulded us men, instead of brute beasts that have no understanding. That we possess reason, a living soul. That we have many and varied faculties. That we can move hither and thither at will. That we can think, and read, and pray, and work. That we can serve the Blessed One; and, by His grace, be schooled and prepared for the glorious immortality of heaven, the home of saints and angels, the palace of the Almighty!

The Apostle, no doubt, hath a special object in view in the chapter before us; but the words of the text are not in anywise cramped in meaning by this. No! they are bold and noble words indeed, with divine meaning in them. A man ought not in public. assembly to cover his head; that part of his noble frame has special stamp of superiority. Man stands erect, as the representative of God; his eyes, his brow, all the features of his countenance, betoken majesty, greatness, divine agencies, and grace—" he is the image and glory of God." O my brothers, do not your souls stir within you on the reading of

these words? Is there not printed on the portals of your being, with a better pen than the pen of a diamond, this sentence, "The temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." Surely we ought to stand in awe. Surely, before we lend ourselves to sin, we ought to enquire why we do this, and for what benefit, when we are especially set apart, as the sacred property of the most Holy God.

Now consider, I pray you, what God would have a man be; and reflect on the agencies or means He employs, to accomplish His purposes: and then we must turn aside, indeed we must, alas! and see what a man is, and what are some of the many and wretched agencies or means employed, to seduce and to ruin him.

"A man is the image and glory of God." The Apostle is speaking of a man, as contradistinguished from woman; he must refer therefore, one might well suppose, to that dominion over the inferior creatures, to that government of the world, with which he is invested by the great Creator; for, in respect of mental and spiritual qualities, the woman also is the image of God. How wonderful is the dominion that man hath over the inferior creatures! With what ease he guides and turns a horse, stronger than he by far! How he drives a herd of cattle. which, in physical power, could overmaster him at once! Every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and

hath been tamed of mankind. Wonderful! We seem to catch echo of the words uttered of old in Paradise "Have thou dominion." "So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him." Reason and a will have more authority and power, than physical or brute force; and little man can compass his great ends by the use of those spiritual and intellectual powers wherewith he, above all the creatures of the world, is endowed; constituting him, in some sort, the image and glory of God. (Be merciful to thy beast, abuse not the power God hath given thee over him; but use it wisely, graciously, as He doth; and so strive to be His image and glory again, in a higher sense of meaning.)

We attach a meaning of sensible fabric to the word image; it is of wood, or of stone, of gold or of silver, or other materials; but when we use the word in the text, we cannot so summon a sensible image before us, as to satisfy the cravings of our nature. God is a spirit. He hath not body, parts, or passions as we; neither dare we compare Him to any of His creatures. Yet we are not likely perhaps to fall into any great error, if we cautiously widen the meaning of the word, until by and by, it embraceth the mighty compass of the idea of the text "image of God." We do not mean a mere visible thing or impression when we say—" as we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." The image of the earthly, what

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